Access Holdings Plc Concludes Plan To Acquire Majority Equity Stake In First Guarantee Pension Ltd

By LOVETH AZODO

The management of Access Holdings Plc has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with First Guarantee Pension Limited to acquired a majority equity stake in the PFA.

The firm also trading as Access Corporation made the announcement in a statement signed by its Group Company Secretary, Mr Sunday Ekwochi.

The statement reveals that the Transaction is a consequential step in the Corporation’s evolution from a narrow banking business into a financial service holding company positioned to gain relevant scale across Africa, global monetary centres, and beyond-banking verticals.

It would be recalled that the National Pension Commission (PenCom) approved the increase of the Minimum Regulatory Capital (Shareholders’ Fund) from N1 billion to N5 billion and given a time frame for recapitalisation exercise to the PFAs, a 12-month transition period from 27 April 2021 to 27 April 2022 within which to shore up their capital.

The Commission recently affirmed full compliance to recapitalization up to a minimum of N5 billion by all the Pension Funds Administrators (PFAs) operating in Nigeria.

Speaking on this landmark transaction, Dr. Herbert Wigwe, Group Chief Executive Officer, Access Corporation, said ‘This transaction is a natural evolution for us.

“Over the last 20 years, we set our sights on and delivered ambitious plans to transform the African financial services landscape focusing on banking and have created the African leading Bank and largest bank by customer base.”

The statement read, “This large customer base both on the wholesale and retail segments makes the pension business a natural fit for the Corporation given its objective of ecosystem optimisation.

We will leverage our well-established culture of strong corporate governance, risk Management, cutting-edge technology, and digital capabilities to deliver high standards of professionalism in the management of pension assets to the benefit of our stakeholders.’

The National Pension Commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria have given their “no objection” to the Transaction, the completion of which is subject to the receipt of all required regulatory approvals.

The Corporation will update the market as appropriate and in accordance with its disclosure obligations.”